Ben Carson's campaign slams bombshell New York Times report as 'affront to good journalistic practices'

One of Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson's
foreign-policy advisers questioned the candidate's grasp of
Middle East events in an interview
with The New York Times, prompting a quick rebuke from
Carson's campaign.

Duane Clarridge, a former CIA officer whom The Times identified
as a "top adviser to Mr. Carson on terrorism and national
security," said Carson struggled to understand the intricacies of
the Middle East and that Carson needed weekly foreign-policy
conference calls to "make him smart."

"Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one
iota of intelligent information about the Middle East," Clarridge
told The Times.

Clarridge was repeatedly described by The Times as a top Carson
foreign-policy adviser, though Clarridge's exact role in the
Carson campaign was not immediately clear. Carson's campaign
pushed back on that description of Clarridge and suggested the
paper was taking "advantage of an elderly gentleman."

"Mr. Clarridge has incomplete knowledge of the daily, not weekly
briefings, that Dr. Carson receives on important national
security matters from former military and State Department
officials," Doug Watts, a Carson campaign spokesman, told
Business Insider in an email.

"He is coming to the end of a long career of serving our country.
Mr. Clarridge's input to Dr. Carson is appreciated but he is
clearly not one of Dr. Carson's top advisors. For the New York
Times to take advantage of an elderly gentleman and use him as
their foil in this story is an affront to good journalistic
practices."

Armstrong Williams, Carson's longtime business manager who
frequently acts as a campaign surrogate, said Clarridge was a
"good guy" who wasn't aware of the extent of Carson's full
preparations on foreign policy.

"Mr. Clarridge is a good man, he's been a friend of Dr. Carson's,
he's well-meaning," Williams told Business Insider. "He's just
frustrated because he was unaware that Dr. Carson was talking to
so many other advisers."

Williams said that over the past two years, Clarridge has met
with Carson twice face-to-face and spoken with him on the phone
about four times.

"He's just a good guy. He's really a good guy," Williams said of
Clarridge. "I know that [the Carson campaign] mentioned in that
press release 'elderly,' but that man is sharp as a tack."

The Times sent Business Insider a statement from senior politics
editor Carolyn Ryan, who points to Williams as the source of the
Clarridge interview.

"It was Ben Carson's closest adviser, Armstrong Williams, who
recommended that we talk to Mr. Clarridge and described Mr.
Clarridge as a 'mentor' to Mr. Carson on foreign policy," Ryan
said in the statement. "Mr. Williams also gave us Mr. Clarridge's
phone number. Mr. Clarridge picked up the phone and our reporter,
Trip Gabriel, conducted a very straightforward interview with
him."

Ryan added: "Mr. Clarridge was the only adviser whose name was
given to us by Armstrong Williams."

In response to a question about President Barack Obama's decision
to send 50 members of special-operations forces to Syria and to
keep 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan,
the retired neurosurgeon said having the US forces in Syria
was better than not having them there. He then noted that Syria
was a "very complex place."

"You know, the Chinese are there, as well as the Russians, and
you have all kinds of factions there," Carson said.

Foreign-policy experts and journalists questioned this analysis.
And the White House colorfully
shot down Carson's suggestion that China had a role in the
four-year civil war that has torn Syria apart and allowed
jihadist factions to grow as Syrian President Bashar Assad has
struggled to hold on to power.

"China has had longstanding and well-documented security ties to
Syria, provided various military weapons and equipment that Syria
is using in the current conflict," a statement from the campaign
said. "Dr. Carson does not believe China is currently fighting in
or deploying troops to Syria, and contrary to press reports, he
has never made that assertion."

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

But Williams told Business Insider last week that intelligence
sources and military operatives in the Middle East had told
Carson that "Chinese military advisers are on the ground in Syria
operating with Russia special operations personnel."

This week, Carson's advisers said his information on China and
Syria came from a phone conversation with a freelance American
intelligence operative in Iraq, according to The Times. A Carson
aide who was on the line noted that the source said "multiple
reports have surfaced that Chinese military advisers are on the
ground in Syria, operating with Russian special operations
personnel."

But Clarridge told The Times that the information turned out to
be incorrect.

The Times reported that the Carson campaign's sole paid
foreign-policy adviser was retired Army Gen. Robert Dees, who
defended the candidate to The Times.

"Dr. Carson is an amazing intellect," he said. "He has the right
stuff to be commander in chief."